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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

I found the â€œOff the Chartsâ€? about 21-year-olds
fascinating (September 2003), because of the impact this group has
on my career and because I have a 20-year-old at home.

He is like the 47 percent of the group who owns a mobile phone,
the 93 percent with a credit card, and the 41 percent who live with
mom or dad.

But even though he spends an awful lot of time surfing the Web,
downloading music and e-mailing friends, he will have a lot of
catching up to do to be an average 21-year-old and spend â€œ31
hours per dayâ€? (emphasis mine) on those
activities.

Was that supposed to read â€œ31 hours per weekâ€? or
â€œâ€¥per month?â€? That seems a more likely weekly
figure for an average â€” in which case my son is at the
high-end of the curve.
CHRISTOPHER GUNTYChandler, Ariz.

Note from the editors:

Oddly enough, our factoid does not contain a typo. The
tidbit, explained on page 31 in the To Be About To Be story in the
same issue, is from MTV research which indicates that, thanks to
multitasking, this age group actually spends more time than there
are hours in the day doing all three of those activities. Perhaps
your son will fess up to being in that category as well.

DREAM VS. REALITY

Many people across America were celebrating, remembering and in
some circles ignoring the 40th anniversary of the March on
Washington and Martin Luther King's legendary â€œI have a dream
speech.â€?

Those in the national black media have been lamenting and
posturing about the lack of black interest in the anniversary of
one of America's greatest moments in modern times as well as black
American history.

Instead of seeking excuses or reasons why black people did not,
as a collective, celebrate the dual anniversary, I thought I would
take this opportunity to evaluate the present day reality of black
life in America's suburbs.

America has made remarkable strides with regards to race
relations. Forty years ago America was ripe with contempt for its
black citizens. The few blacks that lived in the suburbs still
confronted daily bouts of second-class citizenship. Life in the
â€˜burbs today provides many black people with manicured lawns,
two-car garages and plenty of soccer mom activities.

One of the most remarkable aspects about living in the suburbs
these days as a black person is that racial diversity is the
standard, not the exception.

The notion of suburbs being lily white enclaves with token black
residents is clearly an outdated concept.

Today, our suburbs are enclaves of Arabs, Asians and Euros who,
unlike the classic WASPS of the past, bring a set of values and
prejudices against blacks that is as vicious and virulent as white
racism used to be. The ugly and often hidden secret of today's
suburbs is that many of the nonwhite residents display a contempt
for blacks that is often class driven as well as race based.

It is not unusual for black suburbanites to have to deal with an
act of racism from a foreign voice with an immigrant face attached
to it.

Living black in the suburbs still means ugly episodes of good
old garden-variety racism, but the volume and severity of white
racism has diminished. What is really ironic is now blacks and
whites have more in common with each other, primarily because of
the new ethnic makeup of our suburbs and the recent global events
of terrorism and homeland security overkill which makes us more
patriotic yet also a bit paranoid about our new nonwhite
neighbors.

Black folks in some instances are still compelled to display
three degrees of documentation when cashing a check or seeking a
new mortgage or home improvement loan.

Blacks who shop at high-end stores are often queried about
product knowledge and faced with
â€œwas-this-your-first-timeâ€? type of qualifying
questions.

Black migration to the suburbs often occurs after the
attractiveness of the area has peaked and property values have
matured. Whites, in an effort to be good citizens, still engage in
gratuitous and worthless chatter during supermarket encounters.
Elections for local public offices frequently reflect racial
loyalties. Service organizations and civic volunteerism still have
largely white membership. Blacks in the suburbs are often more
conservative, and demonstrate a healthly dose of Republican
sentiments.

Racial profiling, despite the denial of our public officials,
continues to exist but now blacks are more willing to accept that
the risky driving habits of their city visitors is more significant
than the race of the driver and that is the more likely the reason
why the police stop and ticket bad black drivers in the
suburbs.

There is still an unspoken sense of spatial fear between blacks
and whites in our suburbs. The black families which were the
pioneers in the traditional white suburbs also display a sense of
unease toward the new wave and increased volume of black
suburbanites. Many of the oldline blacks resent the newer black
residents because they now displace their mascot role.

Blacks, just like their white suburban neighbors, do complain
and rant about the waste of our tax dollars and the high cost of
property taxes. We also join in the suburban chorus. Our Sundays
however still remain very segregated despite the same religious
beliefs.

In our schools we continue to witness black student/athletes
dominating the traditional sports. We remained concerned and
disturbed about the racial discrepancies in school disciplinary
sanctions. Some of our students despite having economic parity with
their white and ethnic peers still score lower than their
counterparts on the ACT/SAT tests.

Living black in the suburbs despite all of its challenges is
still a worthy lifestyle. I look forward to substantive grocery
store conversations and more sincere interaction with my fellow
suburbanites as the 50th anniversary of the MLK's speech is
celebrated.
GREG THRASHERPlane Ideas
Bloomfield, Mich.